Dell XPS One 27 Review: The Premium All-in-One
by Dustin Sklavos on May 29, 2012 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Dell
- Intel
- XPS
- Ivy Bridge
- Kepler
- all-in-one
- 600M
- NVIDIA
System Performance
Ivy Bridge is a very strange beast. It's been generally underwhelming for enthusiasts given the middling overclocking headroom stemming from poor thermals, though my experience with it is that you can hit roughly the same overall performance levels as Sandy Bridge at lower clocks and lower power consumption. Where Intel's new chips were born to succeed are laptops and all-in-ones, and I think Dell's XPS One is going to be a solid proof of that.
The PCMarks skew heavily towards the SSD caching technology in Dell's XPS One, but the system also features the fastest CPU and fastest graphics of any of the all-in-ones we've tested. Advances in process technology may allow the top end to edge up, but in thermally constrained spaces they can result in big, big performance gains.
Intel's Core i7-3770S allows Dell's XPS One to soundly beat last generation's top 95W processor (outside of the i7-2700K), but the 3770S chops off a third of the i7-2600's TDP. Performance is up across the board, allowing the XPS One to offer a tremendous amount of power for what's fundamentally a family appliance.
The GDDR5 on the GeForce GT 640M also allows the GPU in the XPS One to stretch its legs, delivering at least twice as much graphics performance as the last generation all-in-one from Dell. At this point I'm convinced going with anything but GDDR5 on all-in-one graphics hardware is unacceptable; either stick with the IGP or go all in. Power consumption isn't as big of an issue with all-in-ones, and the bandwidth afforded by GDDR5 is essential for providing a decent gaming experience at 1080p.
Since the other all-in-ones were benchmarked using our old gaming suite, we only have results for the Dell XPS One 2710. That said, generally speaking it has the chops to game at 1080p. I wouldn't push it to the panel's native resolution of 2560x1440, but you can still have a decent gaming experience on the XPS One. This is a massive improvement over the previous generation. And for those who might otherwise complain about not gaming at native resolution, remember that 2560x1440 on a 27" panel gives a small enough dot pitch that running non-native isn't quite as disctracting as on lesser LCDs.
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jabber - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Ahhh crap. As I saw it as an All In One I would have thought Dell would have put in a touchscreen, I guess they have heard about whats round the corner?Forget it....
IKeelU - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Is it just me or is everyone jumping on the "One" bandwagon? This last month alone, I've seen ads for the HTC One (smartphone) and the Nikon 1 (camera), and here I'm reading about the Dell XPS/Inspiron One.Maybe marketing people should be given a dictionary and thesaurus when they graduate.
michael2k - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
The interesting part is the supplied power information from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3559152W Idle, 365W Load, which is much, much higher than the numbers the Dell XPS 2710 posts. What are the thermals for the iMac?
Steelbom - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
They get hot -- although I don't think as hot as this system, but the fans don't move from 1000 RPM which is practically silent.guidryp - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Look up "Gorilla Arm Syndrome".Touch on desktops is simply an ergonomic no-no. A completely wasted gimmick that maybe a few suckers would buy, but nothing to base a product around, regardless of what MS is sticking in their OS.
frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
I agree. Why would you want fingerprints, grease, etc. on a desktop monitor, not to mention that you have to sit and look at it really close. I could see touch on a laptop if you could eliminate the need to carry around a mouse, but not on the desktop.The all in ones seem to be popular in the big box stores, but they seem to force too many compromises to me. Run hot, cant replace/upgrade the monitor, relatively weak performance for the price. Basically all the disadvantages of a laptop without the portibility.
PubFiction - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Your guys are too closed minded. Many people touch monitors to show people things. No one said you had to get rid of the mouse, but having touch as an option opens up lots of possibilities for new uses.If you want to start getting all picky lets just point out the fact that all in one computers are a stupid idea in the first place. Why would you spend the money to put a nice large display in a computer that will need to be thrown out with the computer in 2-3 years when it is simply under powered?
But the fact is people buy them for various reasons.
Voo - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Anyone trying to touch my 30" dells (just monitors) at work or at home would be thrown out of my office/home with broken arms. I mean who in their right mind would want fingerprints on their beautiful screens? My Galaxy S screen is already a huge mess, but at least it's fairly easy to get it reasonably clean.Now I can understand the use of a multitouch trackpad, that has real value (though a mouse and mouse gesture support is not too bad either) and much better ergonomics. But nobody in their right mind sits even close enough to their 30" monitor that they can easily touch it, so how's that going to work?
And yes I don't understand that either - my monitors have an extended warranty of 5 years and I expect them to last much longer than that (my last ones did). Good monitors are still hugely expensive, but at least they are fine for several upgrade cycles.
Penti - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Why wouldn't you just use the multitouch trackpad for any gestures? It's not like you need to see your input device. Just as nobody would think of putting the stick shift or semi-automatic gearshift on a touchscreen on the windscreen of your car for you to see. You need feedback but it's not like you get that by putting your whole arm/hand on a screen in front off you. If you have a really large screen it will probably be further away then an arms length any way. It's different on small devices and devices where you don't have to feed in data in some database or business software all day. Those kind of tasks wouldn't even work without keyboard shortcuts.All the other alternatives on phones are worse though, say a trackball where the convention just works totally differently. Or better yet make proper use of the keyboard. Apple do have their mind in the right track when they don't try to make OS X into an touchscreen OS. Microsoft has pretty much made Windows Runtime irrelevant and would be better of build on Windows CE kernels and a totally different native SDK. It's not like phones or ARM tablets will be able to run Win32 desktop apps any way.
You do need to control everything by the keyboard and trackpad on a desktop OS and it needs to come first. Even penable input is more important there, but at a desk you would use a Wacom tablet for the actual pen input.
philipma1957 - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
dell 2 x 8 gb = max ramiMac 4 x 8 gb ram = 32gb ram
dell gt 640 gpu does not come close to iMac hd 6970m
dell uses half the power of the iMac
the dell is a nice apartment dweller all in one. tv dvr htpc
the iMac can be used for heavier work load.
one last thing about the dell why not the i7 3770t 45 watts vs 65 watts for the i7 3770s to me this is a real error. the machine is underpowered when you compare it to a loaded iMac. which would be good for an apartment dweller, having the 45 watt cpu would have been the way to go.